


things you say when no one's listening

by crookedfingers



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (as in A Dick Gets Slapped), Aftercare, Anal Sex, Anxiety, Collars, Deepthroating, Dick slapping, Established Relationship, Exhibitionism, Facials, Lingerie, M/M, Masks, Pre-Canon, Rough Sex, Sensory Deprivation, Subdrop, light humiliation, situational D/s, some possessive bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-07-29 18:49:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16270214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedfingers/pseuds/crookedfingers
Summary: You into this, Morrison? Yeah. You think it’s hot? Yeah; I think it’s hot. Watching, or being watched?Well...





	things you say when no one's listening

“You awake over there, Morrison?”

“Uh? Mm. Yeah.” Jack yawns wide enough to pop his jaw and swipes a hand down his face—and drags the eye mask all the way down his nose in the process. From the other side of the car, Gabriel makes a tiny, outraged sound and brings a hand down over his eyes.

“Hey, hey, hey, not yet! Keep your eyes shut.”

Jack holds still as Gabriel tugs the eye mask back into place and plucks at the strap, testing the fit. Then Gabriel thumps him solidly on the chest. “Stay there. I’ll get you.”

He hears the driver’s side door open and shut again. Slowly, he sits up and paws at the controls for his seat until it rises to its upright position and thumps softly against his back. Then the door beside him opens, and Gabriel says, “Here’s my hand. Got it?”

Gabriel’s fingers close around his, and Gabriel’s pushes down on the top of his head, making him duck as he steps out of the car so he doesn’t knock against the frame. He straightens out and breathes deeply through his nose.

He’s standing on pavement. It’s almost noiseless outside, aside from the sound of a few cars displacing air as they pass in the distance. He doesn’t smell anything in particular. The wind speed and air temperature are the same as when they got into the car.

He doesn’t know how long it took them to get here. It was already past dark when they met at Gabriel’s car. Gabriel had tossed a leather bag into the back seat, gotten in behind the wheel, and refused to tell him where they were going.

Once they got off base, Gabriel had reached into his pocket and handed him a soft black eye mask, like the kind people bring on air planes, and told him to put it on. So he had. Then he’d reclined his seat and sunk below the window to keep from being seen in Gabriel Reyes’s private car wearing something that looked like a blindfold.

And then, after loftily informing Gabriel that he’d be able to track their entire route, blind or not, he’d dozed off like a goddamn baby.

Now here they are, and he has no idea where it is or what they’re doing. Gabriel’s only advice prior to their meeting had been to dress comfortably. He’d had a few days to think about what the fuck that could possibly portend, and he’s not confident about a single one of his guesses.

The car door closes behind him.

“This way,” Gabriel says, taking him by the elbow and steering him forward.

They go only about twenty steps in a straight line over the pavement before Gabriel makes him stop. Jack hears sounds that he interprets as a door being unlocked and opened.

It’s slightly cooler on the other side of the door. Jack guesses they’re inside a cast-concrete building. There’s a certain smell in the air that brings big industrial buildings to mind. The floor is carpeted. There are no sounds other than their own footfalls.

Gabriel leads him forward another several paces, then stops him again to open another door on their right-hand side. This one isn’t locked.

“We’re going to go down some steps,” Gabriel says, once they’ve gone through the door. “Twenty steps; eighteen-centimeter rise. We’re coming up on the first one. Found it? Put your left hand on the rail.”

Jack reaches for the wall and feels up and down until he finds the handrail. He was right about the building: the wall he touches is made of concrete. It’s cool and smooth.

He slides his toes over the leading edge of the stairs, then takes the first step down. Gabriel lets him walk in front, following two steps behind.

“You’re at the second to last one,” he says, unnecessarily, when Jack is almost at the end. “Stop when you get to the bottom.”

Jack reaches the lower section of the floor and stops walking, putting himself close to the wall. Gabriel brushes past. He hears some miscellaneous noise: something rustling, and a dull clunk-clunk sound. Gabriel must have carried that bag inside with them. Jack stands there, waiting.

“I feel like I’m about to be _Cask of Amontillado_ ’d,” he says, lightly.

Gabriel exhales a quiet laugh next to him. “Hey, don’t worry about that. You could just break through a fresh wall. It’d be a waste of my time.”

“Ah, very reassuring, thank you.”

Gabriel’s hand wraps around his arm.

“Hey,” he says. He’s very close, speaking almost directly into Jack’s ear, as though they’re in the middle of a crowd and he wants to say something for Jack alone to hear. “If you don’t like this… say something. I’ll take care of it.”

“Okay,” he says, downplaying his surprise. Gabriel’s good at knowing what he enjoys, and he’s _confident_ in that knowledge. It’s… uncharacteristic of him to offer a way out before anything has even happened.

He finds Gabriel’s hand on his arm and swipes a thumb over the line of his knuckles, lowering his voice to ask, “Is it okay for me to kiss you here?”

There’s a pause, then faint sounds of indistinct movement. And then Gabriel draws him in and kisses him, cupping the back of his head.

Gabriel pulls away; a door opens. It creates a soft current of air that brushes against Jack’s face. He waits for Gabriel to tug on his arm, and they walk forward together.

Now Jack hears a droning hum, like a white noise machine. This space isn’t carpeted; the floor is just bare concrete. The humming makes it difficult to be sure, but the way their footsteps sound makes him guess that they’re in a fairly large room, not just a hallway. It’s a little warmer in here. They walk forward in a straight line, and then Gabriel says, “There are three steps here.”

Jack lifts his foot, feeling around for the first step. This one feels and sounds like wood, not concrete. Gabriel lets him walk in front again. When they get to the top, they continue another few paces forward before Gabriel says, “Stop.”

They must have reached another door. Jack stops and waits again, listening intently.

There’s more rustling, and he hears something being placed on the floor. It must be the bag. It’s close behind his right foot. He wonders if he could get any clues about what’s inside if he, ah, _accidentally_ bumps it with his heel.

From behind him, Gabriel speak again: “Are your eyes still closed? Keep them closed.”

He feels Gabriel’s hands at the back of his head, and the eye mask starts to loosen. It slips down his nose, and then Gabriel pulls it away entirely. He could crack an eye open now, if he’s careful. Gabriel is behind him. He might not notice.

But Gabriel says, “Hold still,” and then he feels something new press against his face. Gabriel fiddles around behind his head, and something grazes lightly against the back of his neck. He guesses it’s a ribbon. The ribbon tightens, and Jack feels the—mask? it’s a mask?—dig a little more firmly into his forehead and cheekbones. It covers only the upper half of his face, leaving his jaw and most of his nose exposed. This one is solid, not like the soft fabric eye mask.

Suspicion chills Jack’s gut. This is some kind of _event_. They’ve come to—a party? This is a party thing? They’re at some kind of—what, a fucking masquerade? A _casual dress_ masquerade? This was _not_ one of his guesses, but he shouldn’t be surprised that—

Gabriel’s voice comes from close to his right ear: “Don’t say my name.” Jack nods automatically, bemused. Hands settle on his hips. The warmth of Gabriel’s close body radiates against his back. “Open your eyes.”

Jack opens his eyes.

They’re not alone.

He takes in the entirety of the scene at all once, riveted by shock, before his mind filters back through the details one by one. They’re standing together on a raised a wooden platform, maybe ten by twelve meters, on which an enormous white sheet has been spread and attached at the corners. Jack can’t tell the size of the room, or its shape: it’s filled with white smoke. It’s odorless and so uniformly distributed that even when Gabriel moves, starting to walk around him, it doesn’t visibly stir at all. The room is unlit except for a red-tinted spotlight directly overhead, casting them into the bottom of a red pillar of smoke. An exit sign glows to one side. Gabriel stops in front of him, and Jack sees that he, too, is wearing a mask. It’s a realistic, nearly matte silver skull that covers his entire face. It must be new; he doesn’t recognize it. The jaw is slightly open, leaving a narrow split between the exposed, gumless teeth. Gabriel’s eyes are invisible behind the empty eye sockets.

And there are people standing around the platform. Jack swings his eyes as far from one side to the other as he can without moving his head. They’re surrounded as far in either direction as he can see by a crowd that’s two or three people deep in most places. The people are about half a meter back from the platform, not gathered directly against it, and the spotlight doesn’t illuminate them enough to see their faces clearly. The red light just picks out a sampling of disembodied features: a nose here, a chin there. Collarbones, lips, a bare shoulder. Pairs of glasses catch the light. Through the fog, the fragments of human bodies look ghostly and threatening.

The people are talking now. They’d begun whispering as soon as Gabriel told him to open his eyes. He sees them shifting, turning their heads and leaning toward one another, speaking in hushed, private tones he’s not meant to hear. His hearing is good, but all the whispers overlap one another, and the droning white noise smothers everything. But he hears his name. _Morrison_. He can recognize _that_. He’s conditioned to notice it. His eyes flit over the crowd, trying to pick out the source. He hears it again— _Morrison_ —from somewhere to his right. He starts to turn his head.

Gabriel’s arm snaps up, catches his chin, and slowly guides his face straight forward again. For a moment they just look at one another. Jack thinks that his own mask might be gold: there’s a haze of color reflected blurrily over the silver skull’s face. Jack’s mouth hangs slightly open. He doesn’t know what to say.

This… cannot be what it seems like.

Then Gabriel slips his fingers down from chin to neck, stroking the base of his throat above his collarbones, and says, “Undress. Start with your shirt,” and, oh. Maybe it is.

Jack laughs. It’s nothing like his usual laugh. It’s a crackling sound, like an audio glitch. Then he starts to undress. Gabriel’s hand falls away, giving him space to do it. If this is something harmless—if this is _not_ what it seems like—he isn’t going to ruin it by arguing or over-reacting. He can appreciate a joke, a prank; he can be a good sport. So he goes along with it. He starts with the top button of his shirt and works his way down, keeping all of his movements as simple and quick as possible. He wants to look unbothered. In control of himself. Like he's in on it.

The people keep watching, keep whispering. Gabriel keeps watching, too. By the time Jack untucks his shirt to reach the last button, his entire body throbs with nervous energy as though his heart is laboring to circulate an extra liter of blood. His skin feels like it’s going to split. He looks at Gabriel expectantly as he lets his shirt fall open. He’s not wearing an undershirt. Gabriel doesn’t move at all.

Jack rolls the shirt off his shoulders and lets it slide down his arms. It bunches momentarily around his wrists, then drops to the floor. Just like that, he’s half naked in the middle of the platform. If there were a time for Gabriel to reveal the joke or the crux of the surprise, this would be it.

Instead, Gabriel steps right up to him, nearly chest to chest, and brings both hands to his shoulders. There’s something looped around his wrist. Jack had noticed it earlier: something black that he couldn’t identify. Now he can look at it in full, and he suddenly understands what he’s seeing. It’s a leather posture collar.

Jack feels an instantaneous tightening at his throat, as though the collar is already there. He looks stupidly at Gabriel, but the skull mask offers him nothing. Gabriel brings a hand higher and brushes a thumb over his Adam’s apple and the thrumming pulse at the side of his throat. It’s a questioning gesture. Jack doesn’t react to it. He can’t fathom what to do. Then Gabriel takes him by the shoulder again and turns him around. He stares beyond the edge of the platform as Gabriel’s hands circle his neck and fit the collar in place. Jack lifts his chin as it’s tightened from behind. It fits snugly all the way up his neck.

“You good?” Gabriel whispers.

Jack can’t nod. He gives a quiet hum.

Gabriel thumbs behind his ear, where the collar doesn’t cover. “Hey. You good?”

What’s he supposed to say?

“Yes.”

The posture collar is one of his least favorite things. It makes him restless, makes him feel restricted in a way that arm or leg restraints never do. He can break out of those. He can fight them just for the fun of it. The posture collar just chokes him worse if he struggles with it. And the pressure around his neck makes him intensely aware of how hard he’s breathing, how fast his heart his beating. Even now, his blood pressure has risen enough to make it feel like his neck is being wrung. He doesn’t like it, but he can handle it. Gabriel will take it off, if he asks. He’s sure of that. He’s running parallel to panic, aware of it right at the periphery of his mind, but it hasn’t caught up to him yet. He’s okay. He’s good.

And Gabriel takes his word for it. He touches the collar all over, making sure the tension is uniform, and then he reaches around Jack’s body and starts to feel him up, groping at his chest. Gabriel must be able to feel how much he’s sweating. Everyone must be able to see it. He suddenly notices the smell of his own cologne as the salt mingles with it, bringing out different layers of the scent.

Jack keeps his arms at his sides, neither helping nor hindering as Gabriel lazily massages his chest with one hand while the other wanders its way down the front of his body. Jack’s stomach tenses under his hand, his breath softly hitching. Gabriel brushes through the hair below his navel. Then he cups between Jack’s legs.

He’s hard now. He’s not sure when that started to happen. When Gabriel put on the collar? When he started to undress himself in the middle of a crowded room? When he first opened his eyes? Did he understand, even in that instant, what was happening? What Gabriel was going to do to him? The air shudders out of his chest as Gabriel squeezes a hand around his dick, rubbing the head through his clothes. It’s rough enough to hurt, and Jack’s hips jar backwards to escape. But there’s nowhere for his body to go: Gabriel is right there behind him. Gabriel eases up on the pressure and touches him more lightly, dipping farther between his legs and stroking the inside of his thighs. Then he flattens his palm and irons it over his groin, pressing out his pants so the fabric draws taut over his erection, framed against the crest of his thigh by Gabriel’s hand. Letting everyone see. Letting them look.

They’ve talked about this. Years before now. Not about _doing_ this—not in any real way—but it’d come up. They’d been watching videos together, looking for something interesting, just trying to get into the mood. It’d been a hot day, too humid for regular foreplay. And one of the videos was— It showed—

The scene had been filmed at some kind of event. A kink party. The sex itself was ordinary—a conventionally attractive man, on his hands and knees, being fucked—but it was happening right in the middle of a crowded room, people all around them, talking, observing, some of them casually touching themselves, touching one another, as they watched. He’d wanted to watch more of that video. He’d watched others like it before, by himself. Sometimes the scenes were more involved, and everyone else in the room got the chance to touch the participants, too. But Jack preferred ones where the audience only watched.

Gabriel latched onto his interest immediately. You into this, Morrison? Yeah. You think it’s hot? Yeah; I think it’s hot. Watching, or being watched? Well…

He hadn’t been able to explain. He’d never been able to explain. But it hadn’t _mattered_. It was just something he liked in his pornography. So sometimes they watched the videos together, and sometimes Gabriel made jokes during organizational events, and sometimes Gabriel told him to close his eyes in bed and _imagine what they think of you right now, Morrison_. But that was as far as as it went. As far as it _could_ go. He didn’t have to interrogate himself about it because it wasn’t something that could happen.

But it’s happening now, without warning or explanation. Gabriel has him half undressed and collared in front of an audience he can barely see, and he’s fucking hard from it.

Gabriel puts a foot between his and kicks out to either side, forcing him to widen his stance. Then he whispers, “Belt.”

Jack reaches slowly for his belt. He unfastens the buckle, hesitates for an instant, then yanks it through all of the loops at once and throws it aside. It flies beyond the range of his periphery vision. He hears it hit the platform, then make a slithering noise as it continues to slide, and then there’s a _tunk_ as it reaches the edge and falls over. The murmuring intensifies for a second, and someone giggles.

Gabriel laughs next to his ear. “Shoes.”

Oh. That’s going to be more challenging without being able to bend his neck. Jack wets the corner of his mouth and thinks about it.

He says, firmly, “Do it for me.”

The following pause lasts just enough to make him nervous. Then Gabriel laughs again.

Gabriel turns him by the hips, and for just an instant they’re face to face. Then Gabriel drops to his knees. Jack swallows and looks straight ahead as he feels Gabriel loosen the laces of his right shoe. Gabriel grasps the back of his heel, and Jack lifts his foot, and off the shoe comes. Gabriel’s fingers slip up the inside of his pant leg, skimming along his Achilles tendon, and then his sock is being dragged off, too. Jack sets his foot down and curls his toes. The floor is still cold, despite the warm air. Standing there with one bare foot, Jack is suddenly side swept by a wave of vulnerability that takes the floor out from under him. He grabs Gabriel’s shoulder and digs his fingers in. Gabriel touches him again, lightly. His ankle, above his remaining shoe. Gabriel’s thumb rubs back and forth.

They stay like that for awhile. Jack starts to shake, and goes on shaking for a moment, until he stops again just as suddenly. He shuts his eyes and concentrates on his body. He’s standing solidly; he’s not in any pain. Gabriel is here with him. Whatever might be happening right now, he’s not in danger.

He relaxes his grip on Gabriel’s shoulder.

When Gabriel starts to work on his other shoe, Jack surprises himself by placing his foot onto Gabriel’s folded leg. He digs his heel in, testing how much Gabriel will tolerate. He doesn’t get any signals to stop. But Gabriel abandons his shoe and strokes both hands up his leg, massaging first his calf and then the underside of his thigh. He expects Gabriel to reach higher and touch his groin, but both hands stay on his leg. Jack’s mind drifts. He wonders if this is boring to the audience, if the progress seems too slow; if it’s obvious that they know each other, that they’re not just together for this one scene.

Eventually, Gabriel’s hands trail back down to his ankle, and Jack eases up on the pressure he’s putting on Gabriel’s thigh. His foot is lifted and the shoe finally removed. Then his sock is gone, too.

Gabriel guides his foot back to the floor.

“Pants,” he says.

Sweat breaks out across Jack’s entire back. He’d forgotten that— _Fuck_. He moves his hand aimlessly on Gabriel’s shoulder, grasping his shirt. “I’m - wait. I, I’m wearing, uh…”

He doesn’t want to say it. And it doesn’t matter if he does or not: Gabriel won’t be dissuaded. But he can’t make himself obey. He just stands there, hanging onto Gabriel’s shoulder and staring into the crowd, watching them watch him. Gabriel says again, “Pants.”

“Stand up,” Jack whispers. “Please.”

Gabriel grunts, but he stands up. Jack looks at him helplessly. The mask returns an unsympathetic stare. Then, slowly, Gabriel tilts his head to the side, then back. The spotlight shines through the open sockets, and behind them he finally sees Gabriel’s eyes. He has such expressive eyes. Right now their expression is _worry_.

The tilt of Gabriel’s head has left his throat exposed. It moves with his pulse, beating faster than normal. Jack recognizes in his eyes and posture a tender vulnerability that matches his own. Gabriel hates to be watched. He’s not comfortable in the middle of this room, either. And now he thinks that they’re going to stop—that all the effort of reaching this moment has been wasted—and he’s not fighting it. He’s just offering the reassurance of his own presence.

Jack shuffles against him and hooks his chin over Gabriel’s shoulder, shutting his eyes. He brings a hand between their bodies and opens the front of his pants. Then he finds Gabriel’s hands and pulls them to his hips. Gabriel lets himself be pulled, but he just leaves his hands where they’re placed, unmoving. So Jack holds his wrists and makes his hands slide below the open waistband of his pants. At last, Gabriel takes the initiative to reach farther, inching his way lower until his fingertips run over the edge of Jack’s underwear. He pauses for a half-second before skimming over the band again, curious, then plucks at the elastic, and then feels his way along the band until he’s cupping Jack’s cock between his pants and underwear.

He’s wearing lingerie. Just the bottom piece. It’d been impulsive: a tiny, private surprise to match Gabriel’s surprise. Not something he normally went for on his own. He thought Gabriel might like it, if he got far enough to see it.

It seems he does. Gabriel squeezes appreciatively, then slides his hand around to knead at his ass. Jack rolls his hips, feeling hot-blooded and successful. Everyone is watching, but they can’t _see_. No one else knows what Gabriel knows. Jack submerges himself in that feeling of intimacy.

They’re good at creating the illusion of privacy. They’ve honed that skill between them over years and years; learned how to share things only between one another, how to reduce everything to just the two of them. And for a moment that feels true, and Jack does not see the watchers, or hear them, or think about them. It’s just Gabriel. This is just for Gabriel.

Until Gabriel glides both hands down the outside of his thighs, forcing his pants down with them. Once they’ve passed the widest part of his thighs, the pants start to slip lower under their own gathered weight. Jack squirms his legs to encourage them farther down, and at last manages to kick them all the way them off his feet. Then he’s down to nothing but a fucking pair of panties.

He’s taken by the waist and spun around. Gabriel crowds up against him from behind, tucking a thumb under the waistband and easing it incrementally lower on one side. Some part of Jack wants to look down and _see_. Watch what’s happening. The collar presses against the underside of his chin, keeping his head up. But he can imagine what he looks like; he’s seen himself before, in mirrors. He'd chosen a black pair, semi-sheer, not frilly. It’s not women’s lingerie: it fits him properly, but there’s nothing modest about it.

Gabriel touches him through the material. He finds the head of his cock and works at it, rubbing the wet spot in the fabric back against the very tip. The sensation shares a hazy border with pain. It’s sharp; demands his attention. The air streams out of him, and he fights to keep himself from curling forward. Gabriel doesn’t relent, massaging his fingers around the crown until Jack’s vision fractures and he sees double. The crowd multiplies. He realizes that he has grabbed onto Gabriel’s wrist with one hand, the other stretched behind himself to grip Gabriel’s thigh. Then Gabriel slaps his cock lightly, and Jack’s legs half buckle from under him. He growls: “ _Christ_.”

Gabriel has gotten him much worse than that before, but he feels raw like this, peeled down to a sensitive core that’s susceptible to every agitation. Gabriel slaps him again, and again, and bears him up with an arm around his middle while his ears roar and his knees knock together

The lingerie was a mistake. He’d dressed himself up for torment.

Gabriel starts to massage his cock again, and when he hisses and flinches from the touch, Gabriel releases him altogether and pushes on the back of his neck.

“Bend over,” Gabriel says. “Grab your knees.”

Jack gulps air into his chest. He rocks back and forth on his heels, stalling.

Gabriel gives him five seconds. Then he asks, “You don’t want to?”

He sounds aloof, mocking. But Jack hears the genuineness of the question.

He shuts his eyes. “I don’t know.”

“Mm.” Gabriel takes the pressure off his neck. He brushes the space behind Jack’s ear. “I want you to bend over.”

It sounds like a directive. Anyone listening would think so. But it’s something more complex than that. When one of them hesitates, _I want you to_ has come to mean _trust me_. I have a plan; I think you’ll like it. He’s asked for Gabriel’s trust many times.

If he refuses now, Gabriel won’t ask again. He might make another request, or he might stop everything entirely. Both have happened before.

Jack bends over. He grabs his knees.

He sees his own feet under him, and Gabriel’s shoes behind him, and not much else. The position makes the blood collect in his face, makes it burn hotter. Gabriel strokes up and down his back, squeezing either side of his neck below the collar.

“You’re tense.”

He laughs, hoarse. “Yeah.”

“You’re fine. Relax.” Then Gabriel taps his right shoulder. “Give me your hand.”

Jack reaches a hand behind himself.

“No; your palm.”

He swivels his wrist, turning his hand over.

Something wet splats into his hand, and for an instant he thinks that Gabriel has spat on him. He flashes hot with anger, and the roar in his head rises again. Then Gabriel cups his hand and makes him fold his fingers in on his palm, smearing the wetness onto them, and he realizes that Gabriel has covered his hand in lube. It must have just come from his pocket; it’s unexpectedly warm.

Gabriel says, “Prep yourself.”

Jack curls his toes. Heat throbs in his face. Everyone’s watching. Everyone’s watching.

He rubs his fingers together, coating them messily. Lube spills out of his fist as he curls his hand in on itself. Some of it falls onto his calf and drips down his leg. Then he realizes that he still needs to get the - the panties out of the way. He reaches behind himself with his other hand, hooks the waistband, and starts to pull down. Gabriel grabs his wrist.

“Leave those on.”

He grunts in frustration, pulling against Gabriel’s grip. “They’ll get - lube—”

Gabriel doesn’t give him the chance to finish protesting. Jack flinches in shock as another dribble of lube lands right over his tailbone, soaking through the lingerie. Alright then. He grits his teeth and simply draws the panties aside enough to rub clumsily at himself. He shouldn’t rush this, but he does. He wedges three fingers close together and forces them in.

Gabriel squeezes down on his wrist. “Slower.”

This time the noise he makes is substantially closer to a growl; the collar deepens the sound, makes it rougher. But he withdraws his hand, calms himself with a deep breath, and tries again with two fingers. This seems to be acceptable: Gabriel releases his wrist. Jack feels more lube being dripped directly onto his body, making up for the portion he’s already lost during his initial fumbling. He sees a few drops plip to the floor between his feet, making wet spots on the sheet.

Then Gabriel’s shadow separates from his own, and he starts to walk. Jack thinks _what now?_ with mild alarm, but nothing happens. Gabriel just goes on walking. He does a complete loop around Jack, making him the center of a close orbit, and then does another. Jack feels like a show animal. As he starts on the third loop, Gabriel reaches out to place a hand on the small of his back. He runs that hand all the way to the base of Jack’s neck as he draws level with his shoulder. Gabriel skims over the posture collar, combs fingers through his damp hair. But he doesn’t pause. He goes on walking, a hand mapping his path. Gabriel touches his shoulder. Touches his hip. Grabs his ass and spreads him a little.

Jack grinds his teeth from side to side. “I can… I can handle more,” he rasps.

“Yeah?” Gabriel asks. He doesn’t stop moving. Jack waits, barely breathing. He feels another touch on his shoulder. The hand passes over the base of his neck and finds his other shoulder, then trails all the way down his side as Gabriel continues his circuit. But this time, as he comes up behind Jack again, he stops. There’s a stifling pause, and Jack’s skin crawls as he listens to the ambient noise of people whispering to one another.

Then Gabriel fits a slippery finger against him, waits just long enough to see if he’ll object, and pushes in.

Jack had focused exclusively on the prep itself; he didn’t care if it felt good. But Gabriel sets out to destroy him. He curls that finger with cruel deliberation, and Jack makes a soft, devastated noise. One of his knees starts to shake in place.

Gabriel rubs up and down his flank as he works that finger methodically.

“Good?” he asks.

“G—uh—good.”

Gabriel adds another finger. He drags them slowly in and out, grazing slickly against Jack’s own fingers in counterpoint and then, after a moment, coaxing them to rock along with the same rhythm until they’re both fucking him steadily with two fingers each. Gabriel drips more lube onto their hands, and the movement works it down the channel between their fingers. It sounds wet and obscene.

The stimulation makes water gather in Jack’s eyes. His chest and his dick ache. 

At last Gabriel withdraws his fingers, taking Jack’s with him.

“Good?” Gabriel asks again.

“Good,” he answers in a thin voice. He braces the heel of his slippery wet hand against his knee again, his fingers slightly curled, not touching his leg or any other part of his hand, waiting for something to happen. Then he hears the sound of a condom being opened, and his heart smacks against the inside of his ribs. God, he’s going to be fucked like this.

Of course he is. He knew that already. Everything has been leading toward this. He just hadn’t let himself think ahead to this moment. Otherwise he’d think beyond it, all the way to the end, the aftermath. How’s he supposed to walk away from this afterward?

Gabriel plants a hand on the center of his back. “How are we going to do this?”

It might not sound like one to anyone else, but it’s another check-in. An offer. Gabriel’s giving him another chance to change what’s happening. He could take charge, even now. He could make Gabriel _beg_ to continue. But it’s easier to just submit. Thinking about taking control of this situation makes his head and stomach roil. He wouldn’t know what to do. Not with this.

He could walk out—but he’s already stripped, collared, displayed. He barely has any modesty left to protect.

But at least these people wouldn’t see him getting fucked. At least that would remain private.

He says, “Your way.”

_I trust you._

_Use me like you want to._

Gabriel laughs richly, and Jack would fucking _blush_ if his face weren’t already red from bending over. He hears Gabriel’s belt jangle, and then the panties are yanked roughly aside. Then Gabriel snarls a hand in his hair, lines himself up, and takes him in one overwhelming push. Jack grunts, bearing back against it, his body straining from his neck to his knees. Oh, _God_.

Gabriel says, “Down,” pushing against his head and bumping against the back of one of his knees, and he folds onto the floor. He ends up on his hands and knees. Gabriel follows him down, pressed close the whole way. Jack feels fabric brush against the backs of his thighs. Gabriel has just opened his pants without undressing at all. Goddamn bastard.

As soon as they’re on the floor, Gabriel hauls back and starts to fuck him.

It’s hard, the way Jack expected it would be. He braces his palms against the floor, trying to keep himself from being knocked onto his face. The posture collar forces him to gaze straight down, leaving him nothing to look at except his knuckles turning white as his hands curl into fists. Dozens of people are watching this happen, and he can’t even look back at them.

A sensation like vertigo pulls at the pit of his stomach. He’s already gone this far, and there’s some part of him that wants to let go and be taken under. Be consumed by this.

But he can’t make himself _unaware_ of what’s happening. He doesn’t know how to. They’re being watched, they’re being watched. Even if he can’t see the audience, he knows they’re there. And he can still hear them. Not for the first time, he recognizes the sound of his name being whispered by an unfamiliar voice. He has the personal misfortune of being the most famous man for at least a hundred kilometers around; the masks seem absurd and pointless. Gabriel likes to joke that his chin is a traveling national landmark, and here it is, uncovered and on display for everyone. 

Gabriel slaps at his flank. “What’s it going to take to get you to stop thinking?”

“What?” Jack asks. Tries to ask. It comes out as a breathy grunt. He clears his throat. “What?”

“It’s already happening,” Gabriel says, smoothly. “You might as well enjoy it.”

Gabriel said he could stop if he didn’t like it. Jack nearly demands just that, right then and there. That’ll give the both of them something worth thinking about, won’t it? But he stares furiously at the floor, rolls his back, and says, “Fuck me better, then.”

There’s an answering ripple of laughter from around the room. But Gabriel doesn’t laugh, and Jack thinks _fuck_. Now he’s done it. Gabriel Reyes would handle a slap to the face more gracefully than the implication that he wasn’t doing something well.

Gabriel slows down. All the way down. Everything goes a little quieter.

“How can I do better?” he asks, lightly.

“What? Just—” Jack pulls his lips between his teeth and inhales loudly through his nose. When he doesn’t answer, Gabriel taps his side as though to get his attention.

“Come on, I’d like to know. You must have some feedback. How can I improve the experience? I don’t want you to be _bored_ anymore.”

“Just—” Jack starts again. He tries to shake his head, and can’t.

For just a second, it’s more than he can handle. He folds his arms under himself and drops his forehead all the way to the floor, closing his eyes and gulping for air. The audience’s whispering sounds like an avalanche, bearing down on him. He wants to shout: shut up, shut up, be fucking quiet.

Then he pushes himself up again and says, clear and loud, “Just fuck me harder, if that’s not asking too fucking much.”

_This_ time Gabriel laughs. Then he takes him by the hips, and suddenly Jack is open-mouthed and choking as Gabriel holds him in place and rails into him with none of the restraint he’d apparently been exercising. Jack pitches back and forth on his hands and knees, scrabbling at the mat.

They don’t get many opportunities to fuck like this. It’s fast and punishing and fucking _good_. Jack is panting outright within seconds, hot and dizzy. It’s hard to stay quiet.

Then a thought bursts into his mind with the thunderous force of a divine revelation. He doesn’t have to. He doesn’t have to be quiet.

Gabriel likes when he makes noise, and he wants to be and do anything that pleases Gabriel. But he’d learned to be silent for Gabriel before anything else, and he’d learned it too well. It's hard to undo that lesson. They had to be quiet through the Program, through years of war, through years of operating out of mobile divisions and temporary bases. They’d had to be quiet in Indiana, in Los Angeles, in scores of hotel rooms. He’d learned to regulate his body in a hundred ways, and staying quiet was as instinctive now as shaking hands without crushing fingers.

And now it doesn’t matter. Anyone who could overhear him is already in the room. He can’t hide anything. He can’t protect himself now.

“Come on,” he rasps, shoving his hips back, “come on, come on.”

Without warning, Gabriel’s hand cracks down on his backside, and he cries out more from the shock of it than any real pain. The dam breaks. Once he’s made that noise, it’s easier to make another, seconds later, when Gabriel takes him by the hair as leverage to haul him back. Each sound erodes something inside him, makes the next one come easier.

He shouts. He shouts louder. And he goes on shouting, and growling, and making raw, ugly sounds as he’s taken relentlessly. It feels good to make noise. It feels draining. Euphorically draining. Every noise empties him, hollows him out, replaces everything inside him with this moment, this act, this man. _Him_. He pours himself out for Gabriel until he’s just a mindless thing that just reacts without filters or reservations. He’s never let go like this. Not like _this_.

Then Gabriel shakes him. “You want to come?”

Jack realizes that he’s balanced on only one arm now, the other hand up between his own legs. He tries to nod, and the posture collar digs under his jaw.

He gasps, “Yes.”

Gabriel tugs at the back of his head. Not on his hair. The ribbon. The _ribbon_. Jack feels the mask loosen. He reaches instinctively to grab it, but already too late. The mask falls. It falls straight down and hits the floor. The noise it makes freezes him all the way through.

Gabriel grabs his shoulder and heaves him up, and suddenly he’s on his knees, bare faced, in front of the audience.

Gabriel puts a hand over his groin, making a cage with his fingers, not quite touching him enough to satisfy. Jack grasps Gabriel’s hand with his and leaves it there unmoving, frozen in bewilderment.

“I think everyone would like to know who you are, first,” Gabriel says. “Why don’t you tell them?”

Jack thinks, _no_. This is too far; this is dangerous.

Then he thinks, _does it matter?_ They’ve seen his face now. They’ve seen all of him, everything. He’s gone into danger a thousand times at a word from Gabriel, and they must know, they must already know—

He whispers, “Jack Morrison.”

Gabriel hooks a thumb in his underwear, peeling it down, and Jack makes a disgraceful noise as his cock his brought out. Gabriel starts to stroke him.

“What? You have to speak up. It’s noisy in here.”

Jack squeezes Gabriel’s wrist, breathing roughly through his teeth. “Mor… Morrison,” he chokes, louder. “Jack Morrison.”

Gabriel pumps faster. He focuses on the head, working his thumb over it while his hips move and move. “What, is that your fucking porn name? I want to know who you really are.”

Jack’s hips jerk. Sweat runs down his forehead, catches in his eyelashes for a moment, then grows heavy enough to seep through and trickle down. He shuts his eyes, and every one of his other senses bombards him with Gabriel, _Gabriel_. “St— Strike Commander John F. Morrison!”

Gabriel’s voice against his ear, thick with intensity: “Who do you belong to?”

“Fuck— You!”

“I said, who?”

He scrabbles, scratching at the back of Gabriel’s hand and wrist. “Ruh-uhh! Reyes! Commander Gabriel Reyes! Gabriel! Gabriel!”

Gabriel gives a low, pleased laugh. “Come on my cock, Strike Commander.”

Jack snarls. He throws his head back onto Gabriel’s shoulder. His own hips jerk forward, and Gabriel moves with him. He wants to say _fuck you, you think I’m just waiting on your word?_  but his throat is all tight, and it's too much. He makes a noise like Gabriel has hit him in the stomach, spasms all over, and comes onto Gabriel’s hand. Gabriel tightens his fingers and wrings it out of him mercilessly. It’s the hardest orgasm he’s had in—he doesn’t know how long. He can’t think about time. About anything. The moment envelops him completely. He feels choked inside the posture collar, blood pounding in his temples. He stares over the top of the crowd in front of them. He’s ruined; he’s fucking ruined.

Warm pain ricochets through his body. He sucks air through his teeth and claps at Gabriel’s arm, grunting, “Stop, stop.”

Gabriel stops moving instantly and takes the hand off him. Then he pulls out. Jack grunts.

He manages to stay upright on his knees, somehow, as Gabriel stands up and moves to stand in front of him. He’s already taken off the condom.

Jack coughs, and swallows, and then simply opens his mouth, anticipating what’s going to happen.

Gabriel’s cock pushes into his mouth. There’s no warm-up period. Gabriel takes him by the back of the head, and guides him all the way down at once, and holds him there. He grinds his hips into Jack’s face, and Jack fumbles to grab at his belt, just wanting something to hold onto as his eyes water and his chest seizes. The collar makes this more difficult than usual. He fights against the panic of suffocation.

Gabriel knows exactly how long he can handle it. They stay like that, with Gabriel’s cock rocking into his throat and Jack’s palms sweating, until he thinks that he’s going to have to tap out. Then Gabriel yanks him back by the hair and pulls his mouth all the way off. Jack coughs, drooling onto his chin. He looks up—past Gabriel’s cock, wet, still an inch from his face—and stares at the mask looking back down on him, Gabriel’s whole silhouette rimmed by a hazy red glow.

Gabriel jerks himself through the last few strokes he needs to finish. Jack just watches. He sees the slightest tremor in Gabriel’s legs. Then Gabriel groans and comes on his face.

Jack shuts his eyes.

Gabriel comes on his cheek, his forehead, over his mouth. He holds still and lets it happen, breathing hard and slow through his nose.

The tension on his scalp eases as Gabriel lets go of his hair. A few seconds later, he hears the brisk sound of a zipper being drawn up. He keeps his eyes shut until Gabriel grabs him by the hair again and starts to pull—not just yanking his head around, as before, but actually dragging him by it, forcing him to lurch a step forward on his knees. He hisses, reaching up to grab the wrist that has seized him. Gabriel doesn’t let go. He starts to walk, and Jack totters along beside him, squinting and grimacing.

Gabriel brings him all the way to the edge of the platform, beyond the full reach of the spotlight. Now he’s close enough for the observers to reach out and touch, and his heart speeds even faster as he wonders if that’s what’s going to happen. If all these people have just been waiting for their turn to participate.

He picks his chin up and stares straight into the audience, steeling himself to meet their eyes.

They’re not looking back at him. Above him are strangers’ faces animated in hushed conversation, but they’re staring over the top of his head, still focused on the center of the room. Not looking where he is right now. Something isn’t right. They’re… flat, somehow. Jack rocks back and forth, frowning. Are his eyes out of focus? He glances downward. The crowd’s feet don’t line up correctly with the plane of floor. This is wrong.

“Gabriel,” he rasps, daring now to use the name. “What—what the fuck?”

Gabriel laughs, deep and pleased. He says, “Happy birthday, Jack.”

The people in front of Jack explode. Into confetti. He watches a rainbow curtain of it cascade toward the floor, but it doesn’t gather into heaps. It just disappears. Then, with no warning at all, the overhead lights burst on. Jack’s eyes snap shut, and he throws an arm above his head to cast a band of shade over his face. Gabriel’s hand slips out of his hair. Everything is quiet now. Jack cringes under the light, struggling to reopen his eyes. Fuck, it’s bright, and there’s come in his eyelashes. Fuck.

When he finally manages to force his eyes open, he finds himself staring at the floor. The confetti has stopped raining down. There’s no one in front of him. Jack slowly drops his arm and slowly raises his eyes. He’s facing an empty room. Bare walls. No furniture, no windows. Through the fog he can barely see the edges of—panels. _Screens_. Simulation screens. The tall, transportable ones they used to use before they had their permanent headquarters. They’re arranged side-by-side, forming a half-wall between the platform and the rest of the room.

He looks up, jaw hanging, and meets the hollow, mocking gaze of the skull mask.

“Fucker!” he shouts. “Fucker! You!”

He explodes onto his feet and hurls himself bodily at Gabriel—and Gabriel catches him as a bear might catch a salmon throwing itself up a waterfall. He ends up with his arms pinned to his sides and his feet dangling off the floor, his momentum arrested mid-leap. He hears Gabriel’s breath rushing through the skull’s narrow mouth gap, rasping faintly with the strain of holding him in place as he struggles. He can’t back away or get his feet under him—so he pitches his shoulders forward and smears his wet, filthy face against the mask.

Gabriel roars and drops him, pushing him back, and Jack squares himself and dives right back in again. This time Gabriel backs away from him, arms up in a defensive position, and Jack has to pursue. He doesn’t try to break Gabriel’s guard: he just rushes in at full speed, and they smack together like wet sand bags. He wrestles Gabriel down to his knees, and then they’re rolling over one another on the floor, floundering against each other. It’s absolutely artless.

Gabriel gets him pinned. Unsurprising, since he can move his neck and isn’t all but naked. Jack’s goddamn panties are twisted up around his thighs.

Jack huffs and heaves under him, then thumps a fist against his chest twice. Giving up. “You—fuck— Can I take this fucking thing off?”

“Let me.”

Gabriel climbs off, then helps him sit up. He holds still as Gabriel kneels behind him, loosens the collar, and slips it off. Jack inhales and exhales deeply, rubbing the base of his throat. It’s wet from trapped sweat. “Thanks,” he says.

“I’ll get you some water, hold tight.” Gabriel pats his shoulder and levers himself up. Jack hears his footsteps receding behind his back.

Jack struggles out of his underwear. It’s sodden with lube and pre-come. He throws it over his shoulder, then wipes his hands off on his own thighs. He looks down at himself. His knees are ruddy; he feels pathetic in a sudden and consuming way.

Gabriel drops to one knee beside him. He places a water bottle on the platform and holds out a disposable wet cloth. He’s taken off the skull mask.

Jack takes the cloth and starts to wipe down his own face. Shit, Gabriel really fucked up his hair, too. If anyone else sees him tonight there’ll be no hiding what a mess he is. The thought bothers him more than it should. The tiny fissure of anxiety spreads through his chest, making it ache. He throws the cloth aside and opens the water bottle, and then his hands are shaking and the bottle is clattering against his teeth.

“Hey.” Gabriel touches the underside of his chin, and he jerks his head away. “What’s going on?”

Jack wipes a forearm across his mouth and clears his throat. He caps the bottle and sets it down. “Just… Just coming out of it now, I guess.”

“Yeah? You okay?”

“I guess. Yeah.”

“Jack. Come on.”

He shakes his head, not looking at Gabriel. “That was just—that was rough. Intense, you know?”

Normally he had warning before they did something out of the ordinary. Time to prepare. Or, even when he was taking by surprise, he could guess what would happen next. The direction things were going. This had been different. No preparation; no way of knowing what the next step would be. And not just that: his discomfort and confusion had been used, fed, encouraged. He’d been put under a literal spotlight and observed under duress. Normally he'd be angry—Gabriel _lied_ to him—but right now he doesn't have the energy for a strong reaction. He’d spent the whole scene fighting with his own panic, his body pumping out adrenaline and endorphins to get him through, and now that it’s over, he’s drained of everything. Running on fumes.

He’ll bounce back quickly. He can thank the Program for that. But for now he’s whittled down, scraped thin, nothing left to give.

Gabriel reaches out and chafes at his upper arm. “Do you want clothes? Something to eat?”

“No, I’m…” He trails off. The reassurance feels hollow. He should eat, should put on his clothes, but he can’t muster the desire.

“Hey. Come here.” Gabriel sits back, beckoning with one hand. He braces an arm behind himself, stretches his legs, and leans all the way back until he’s propped on an elbow. Jack hesitates, then crawls up beside him. Gabriel says, “C’mere” again, reaching up, and Jack lets himself be dragged down until he’s lying stretched on top of Gabriel. He breathes in-out, in-out, and tucks his head under Gabriel’s chin. An arm falls across his back and rubs firmly.

“Thanks,” he mutters. “Can, uh. Can you talk about something? For awhile.”

“What do you want me to talk about?”

“Uh. Anything. Uh. Where the fuck are we?”

“It’s a theater. Not originally. It was converted to one. I’ll show you the main stage before we leave.” Gabriel rolls his head sideways. “This room is for smaller shows. Theater in the round. There are usually bleachers in here.”

Well. That explains the spotlight. Jack frowns. “It sounded empty. Did you rent out an entire theater?”

“No, I didn’t pay for anything.”

This answer is more suspicious than Gabriel probably intended it to be. Jack says, “ah” in a knowing way, and clears his throat. “Did you… film people? The people that—the people on the screens? I... heard my name.”

Gabriel laughs, thumping his back a couple times. “Fuck no; it was just stock footage I messed around with. All the audio was—here, I’ll show you. Move your fucking leg.” Gabriel grabs one of his thighs and hauls it out of the way so that he can reach his pocket and take out his phone. He sets it on the floor beside his head and drawls, “Play audio three, regular volume.”

From somewhere to Jack’s right, a voice starts to speak: “Commander Jack Morrison paid an unexpected visit to the hospital, spending several hours with patients and attending family members on behalf of Overwatch before—”

“Pause audio,” Gabriel says.

The voice cuts out mid-sentence.

“What you were hearing was a couple dozen of my favorite news reports—plus some nice generic 'group whispering' tracks.” Gabriel smiles up at him, suffused with absolute satisfaction.

“You were using your fucking _phone_?” he asks, barking out an incredulous laugh.

“Well—not much. I needed something with a microphone to pick up audio cues. I only used it to enter commands a couple of times when you were being a wise ass.”

“Oh, _I_ was being a wise ass?” he scoffs, jostling Gabriel's feet with one of his own. Then he asks, “Is it really my birthday?”

“It’s past midnight, yeah.”

“Fuck.” He drags a hand through his hair. “I could go for twelve hours of sleep right now. Think there’s any chance I can get through the rest of the day without there being some kind of fucking party?”

“Ingrid bought balloons.”

He groans and mashes his face into Gabriel’s shoulder, and Gabriel pats him more aggressively. “That’s why we’re here tonight. I had to give you _my_ surprise while you were still fresh.”

“How considerate,” he mumbles. “I’m not going to help you clean any of this up, by the way.”

To Gabriel’s credit, he doesn’t complain, only gives a little hum of acknowledgment. “Nah? You want to go back to the car and sleep while I work on it?”

He doesn’t. The extra sleep isn’t worth being separated from Gabriel. Instead of saying so, he gently headbutts the underside of Gabriel’s chin and asks, “How long have you been working on this?”

“A while,” Gabriel says, illuminatingly. “But I only had one night to do all the on-site set-up and testing. Pulled a fucking all-nighter.”

“The— So the ‘emergency’ last night was…”

“A critical birthday emergency.”

“Jesus, Gabe. You could have just gotten me takeout and, and some flowers.”

He’s never asked for flowers before in his life. There’s absolutely no reason for Gabriel to have gotten him flowers.

“I had to do something special for the big four-oh, Morrison.”

Like he wants to be reminded. He finds a grey hair in Gabriel’s beard and tugs on it. “Alright, alright. Just remember that your fiftieth will be here before you know it.”

“Yeah? Well, if I’m lucky I’ll be dead before I have to worry about it.”

It’s a joke, Gabriel’s joking with him, but he says, “Gabriel,” his voice going sharp, and Gabriel’s answering laughter is stilted, like he knows he’s gone too far. He lands a light, playful whack on Jack’s thigh. “You know I’m kidding. Just don’t make it sound like it’s right around the corner. I still have some time left.”

Both of them go quiet for a moment. Gabriel keeps stroking his back, lightly, apologetic without saying so, and Jack searches himself for the correct emotion, trying to dredge something out of the staticky void inside his body. It’s easier to hold his mind together as long as they're talking, but now he doesn’t know what to say. Then Gabriel asks, “Did you like it?” and he sounds so casual that Jack knows he’s hanging on the answer, nervous about it.

He snorts softly. “You could hear me, couldn’t you?”

“Ha. All that meant was that you got fucked well; it doesn’t mean you liked it.”

His first reaction is to laugh. But Gabriel stays quiet, waiting for an answer, and he has to stop and actually think about it. 

“I don’t know,” he says at last. “It, it was difficult.”

This is clearly not the answer Gabriel hoped to hear: he makes a little “mm” noise down in his throat, and Jack reaches up to pat his cheek. He frowns to himself as he struggles to elaborate. “It was—cathartic. And it’s easier to appreciate in hindsight, now that I know it’s not going to make it into the morning news. But it was different than what I… imagined.”

In his imagination, none of the people watching could ruin his life. He didn’t have to consider the reality of what came _afterward_. There was only as much vulnerability or fear as he wanted to embellish the experience.

But this—this had pulled him apart ways his own mind never could.

“It was good,” he concludes, not wanting Gabriel to think he’d failed. “Did _you_ like it?”

“I’ve never been more uncomfortable in my life,” Gabriel laughs, and Jack joins him for a couple seconds until he realizes that Gabriel is being at least half serious. He pushes himself up with his arms, enough to be able to look down into Gabriel’s face.

“What? Could have fooled me. Seemed like you were having a grand time.”

Gabriel moves his shoulder and runs a hand over his chin. “It had to be perfect or it wouldn’t work. I spent the whole time thinking about every fucking thing that could go wrong. I’ve been sweating since we got in the car.”

Jack pats a hand against his chest. His black shirt is damp across the chest. “Ah. I thought I got that on you.”

Gabriel laughs again, shaking his head. “I did that to myself. I kept thinking that you weren’t even going to believe it.”

“It was convincing,” Jack says. “You’re a Hell of an actor when you want to be.”

“Mm. But did you really think I would ever do something like that? Put you through that?”

“No,” he says, after a second’s pause. “I didn’t.”

“So you changed your mind right at the last second, or what?”

Jack rolls over. He flops onto his back on the platform and tosses an arm over his face to keep the light out of his eyes. “No. I…  I wasn’t thinking. I stopped thinking. That’s—no. I mean, I _was_ thinking, but I was thinking about the, the wrong thing. I was thinking about how to stay calm. Everything else got pushed out.” He lifts his arm and peers over at Gabriel. Gabriel’s looking intently back at him. He has beautiful eyes.

Jack tucks his other arm under his head. “The worst-case scenario was that it was real—don’t take that the wrong way—so that’s what I had to believe.”

Now that he can look back at the situation without the distortion of shock, it’s easy to identify all the tells he’d overlooked at the time. If there had really been dozens of people in the room, he should have known it well before the blindfold came off. A group of people in an enclosed space have an undeniable _presence_. He should have heard something, smelled something, felt something as he walked through the room. But he hadn’t heard anyone breathing or shifting in minute, almost undetectable ways; there’d been no perfume, no cologne, no sweat or deodorant or soap or cigarettes or _skin_ ; there’d been no body heat. Gabriel had distracted him with the white noise, the smoke, the posture collar—but he should have _realized_.

The scene had been carefully prepared, but more than anything, Gabriel had counted on his surprise and his trust to make him believe. To make him obey.

It’d worked completely.

“You still with me, Jackie?”

“Huh? Yeah, I’m—I’m just thinking.” He sits up, testing the way his body feels as he moves, and stretches both arms over his head. Gabriel’s eyes flicker up-down, looking him over appreciatively. It still flatters him, even so many years later. “What was your back-up plan, if I didn’t go along with this one?”

“Like fuck am I going to tell you now.” Gabriel sits up, too. “You look like you’re going to fall asleep. I’m going to get your clothes.”

Gabriel brings him another wet cloth, first, so he can finish cleaning himself up. Then Gabriel collects his wrinkled shirt, and his wrinkled pants, and hops off the platform to retrieve his belt. He leaves the ruined panties lying in a sad little heap.

“You have to pick those up yourself,” he says.

Jack kicks them over to the knapsack, instead. He gets dressed, then hobbles his way down the steps and sits, putting his back into the corner made by the steps and the side of the stage while Gabriel picks up after them. 

The next thing he knows, he’s being shaken awake. Oh,  _now_ his neck hurts. He grimaces, wiping the corner of his mouth as he straightens his back and head. Gabriel is crouched next to him, his shirt unbuttoned almost to the bottom of his sternum.

“You could have taken the eye mask again,” he says lightly. “Ready to go?”

Gabriel’s holding out a hand. Jack takes it, then braces himself and yanks Gabriel in. Gabriel catches himself on his shoulder to keep from toppling all the way against him, and Jack throws an arm around _his_ shoulder and draws him in for a heavy kiss. He thinks, _surprise_.

He holds onto Gabriel until he’s gotten his tongue into his mouth and his other hand up Gabriel’s shirt and Gabriel has grabbed the stairs beside them to support his weight. Then he pushes Gabriel back and punches him oh-so-lightly in the ribs. Gabriel’s eyes search his face, not sure what to make of this.

“Stay tonight,” Jack says. “My place. Please.”

Gabriel nods, finding his hand and lifting it to his mouth so that his lips brush against it as he says, “Let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title stolen from "[You're Mine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDLJUoSYNT4)" by Phantogram.


End file.
